“If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

It looks like Livingston and Penn are getting some long deserved recognition. See their graph below:

Graph above from the WUWT solar reference page. Note: when the B gauss reading of sunspots hits 1500, they will no longer have enough contrast to be visible. That may occur at or near the years 2015-2017. WUWT carried a story in 2008 warning of this.

Some unusual solar readings, including fading sunspots and weakening magnetic activity near the poles, could be indications that our sun is preparing to be less active in the coming years.

The results of three separate studies seem to show that even as the current sunspot cycle swells toward the solar maximum, the sun could be heading into a more-dormant period, with activity during the next 11-year sunspot cycle greatly reduced or even eliminated.

The results of the new studies were announced today (June 14) at the annual meeting of the solar physics division of the American Astronomical Society, which is being held this week at New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

…

Currently, the sun is in the midst of the period designated as Cycle 24 and is ramping up toward the cycle’s period of maximum activity. However, the recent findings indicate that the activity in the next 11-year solar cycle, Cycle 25, could be greatly reduced. In fact, some scientists are questioning whether this drop in activity could lead to a second Maunder Minimum, which was a 70-year period from 1645 to 1715 when the sun showed virtually no sunspots.

…

“We expected to see the start of the zonal flow for Cycle 25 by now, but we see no sign of it,” Hill said. “This indicates that the start of Cycle 25 may be delayed to 2021 or 2022, or may not happen at all.”

…

If the models prove accurate and the trends continue, the implications could be far-reaching.

“If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” Hill said. “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

More on this as it unfolds. This article will be updated as new information becomes available.

The long term Ap (the solar geomagnetic index) has been on a downtrend, ever since there was a step change in October 2005.

Thanks to Leif Svalgaard, we have a more extensive and “official” Ap dataset (NOAA’s SWPC shown above has some small issues) that I’ve plotted below. The step change in October 2005 is still visible and the value of 3.9 that occurred in April of 2009 is the lowest for the entire dataset. The Ap Index was the lowest in 75 years then.

Click for a larger image

And I’ve also plotted the 1991 to 2009 from BGS/Svalgaard to compare against the NOAA SWPC data:

Click for a larger image

============================================================

Dr. Leif Svalgaard writes:

Here are the abstracts of the three studies referred to in the announcement:

P16.10
Large-scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle 25?13
Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T. P. Larson, J. Schou, M. J. Thompson
The so-called torsional oscillation is a pattern of migrating zonal flow bands that move from midlatitudes towards the equator and poles as the magnetic cycle progresses. Helioseismology allows us to probe these flows below the solar surface. The prolonged solar minimum following Cycle 23 was accompanied by a delay of 1.5 to 2 years in the migration of bands of faster rotation towards the equator. During the rising phase of Cycle 24, while the lower-level bands match those seen in the rising phase of Cycle 23, the rotation rate at middle and higher latitudes remains slower than it was at the corresponding phase in earlier cycles, perhaps reflecting the weakness of the polar fields. In addition, there is no evidence of the poleward flow associated with Cycle 25. We will present the latest results based on nearly sixteen years of global helioseismic observations from GONG and MDI, with recent results from HMI, and discuss the implications for the development of Cycle 25.

P17.21
A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor
W. C. Livingston, M. Penn, L. Svalgaard
s Convention Center
Sunspots are small dark areas on the solar disk where internal magnetism, 1500 to 3500 Gauss, has been
buoyed to the surface. (Spot life times are the order of one day to a couple of weeks or more. They are thought to be dark because convection inhibits the outward transport of energy there). Their “vigor” can be described by spot area, spot brightness intensity, and magnetic field. From 2001 to 2011 we have measured field strength and brightness at the darkest position in umbrae of 1750 spots using the Zeeman splitting of the Fe 1564.8 nm line. Only one observation per spot per day is carried out during our monthly telescope time of 3-4 days average. Over this interval the temporal mean magnetic field has declined about 500 Gauss and mean spot intensity has risen about 20%. We do not understand the physical mechanism behind these changes or the effect, if any, it will have on the Earth environment.

P18.04
Whither goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona
Richard C. Altrock
Solar Cycle 24 had a historically prolonged and weak start. Observations of the Fe XIV corona from the Sacramento Peak site of the National Solar Observatory showed an abnormal pattern of emission compared to observations of Cycles 21, 22, and 23 from the same instrument. The previous three cycles had a strong, rapid “Rush to the Poles” in Fe XIV. Cycle 24 displays a delayed, weak, intermittent, and slow “Rush” that is mainly apparent in the northern hemisphere. If this Rush persists at its current rate, evidence from previous cycles indicates that solar maximum will occur in approximately early 2013. At lower latitudes, solar maximum previously occurred when the greatest number of Fe XIV emission regions* first reached approximately 20° latitude. Currently, the value of this parameter at 20° is approximately 0.15. Previous behavior of this parameter indicates that solar maximum should occur in approximately two years, or 2013. Thus, both techniques yield an expected time of solar maximum in early 2013.
*annual average number of Fe XIV emission features per day greater than 0.19

Haha Got it right sorry for been a show off (see my posting in previous post re this matter). We are looking at a serious cooling off. I believe it has started and is being held off by ocean heat release, but beware apparently a trransition to full ice age can occur in a 20 year period. Refs are available

L&P can’t get a much clearer endorsement of their work. Climate change just might become the major new world challenge afterall, just not warming. Perhaps CO2 hasn’t saved us from the Ice Age we’re in like Big Climate been bragging about in Wikipedia afterall.

That doesn’t sound good at all. So far it has not been so warm in North West. I started to built a greenhouse for our garden. That is the only way if we want any vegetables this year. The tomato plants are struggling.

Climate disruption is one thing from a weak sun but how would this affect the magnetic coupling to the planets? How would this affect the earth?

It is quite obvious that we will be hit by a long cold period. According to The Team’s models, their solution would be to emit as much CO2 as we can in order to avoid a planetary catastrophe. Then again, according to their funny science, if we emit more CO2 the planet will cool even more…

I do not have substantial confidence in our predictive powers, either to be able to predict how much future solar activity there will be, nor to predict the effects of such activity (or lack of it). I am, however, convinced that a cold spell with shorter growing seasons will be far more of a problem to mankind than some warming of a few degrees (which warming would very probably have been beneficial to mankind).

If there is lower solar activity and if this causes cooling, given that people are more mobile than they use to be, we may well see a mass exodus to sunnier climes.

If it turns out to be true that solar activity is going to be low for a while, then maybe the sun — in the last 5 years — really has had more than a negligible impact for cooling the planet.

If that is true, then maybe, in the absence of significant solar cooling, greenhouse gases have more of a warming effect that many of us on this website believe.

I’m not saying how this will play out, I don’t know, but until this latest article, I wasn’t yet prepared to think that the Sun could really be in something approaching Dalton or perhaps even Maunder Minimum solar cooling.

“We need not wait until 2030 to see whether the forecast of the next deep Gleissberg minimum is correct. A declining trend in solar activity and global temperature should become manifest long before the deepest point in the development. The current 11-year sunspot cycle 23 with its considerably weaker activity seems to be a first indication of the new trend, especially as it was predicted on the basis of solar motion cycles two decades ago. As to temperature, only El Niño periods should interrupt the downward trend, but even El Niños should become less frequent and strong. The outcome of this further long-range climate forecast solely based on solar activity may be considered to be a touchstone of the IPCC’s hypothesis of man-made global warming. ”New Little Ice Age
Instead of Global Warming?
Landscheidt – Energy and Environment 14, 327-350. – 2003

“If the models prove accurate…” When are they going to learn that models of complex physical systems are no good, with such noisy data? They are just showing me the infant stage of their investigations, much less their understanding, with these graphs.

Seeing that politicians are primarily lawyers with little to no concept of physics, they’ll probably pass a law requiring the sun to start making sunspots again.

I say this tongue in cheek… but when you consider what they’re doing with regulations on fuel mileage and coal fired power plants, which if enacted will lead to disasterous impacts on our economy and way of life, one can only wonder what stupidity is coming from them next.

Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:26 am
It may be good science. I am not questioning that. However, it does provide excellent cover for the Warmista to withdraw from their ridiculous positions. I bet they do, pronto.

“This a temporary reprieve. It buys us time. It is now imperative that the world seize this unexpected opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions to safe levels to avoid the catastrophic warming that will inevitably occur when Solar activity returns to normal.”

I wonder if the Beep(BBC) will ignore this or if they don’t, how they will spin it?
The Sun may go spotless, but not to worry. The Sun effect on the climate is so small. Nothing to see here. Move on.
Just continue to spend money on windmills, continue the march in to the wonderful new green world order and continue to de-carbonizing/de-industrialize the economy.

Might take a bit of explaining if this comes to pass. Certainly the past two winters in the UK have been unusally cold is this just the opener? But overall arent these last few years supposed to be the hottest ever?
I’m confused

Many people have suggested that SC24 is going to be like SC5, and I advocated that on bases of my calculations.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/NFC7.htm
Dr. Svalgaard predicts SC24 same as SC14, and that SC25 will be ‘considerably bigger’. I think he is wrong, since my calculation however imperfect, shows that there was a phase switch around 1800, and the polar fields extrapolationhttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
shows that the polar fields may not switch polarity some time in the near future. So the L&P effect may just be a feature of a deep minimum ( as Dalton) where there is some kind of magnetic phase perturbation taking place.
But what is the cause? Don’t expect an answer from the regular science.

Can’t see what ll the fuss is about. The faithful know that the sun has no effect on the earth’s climate, in exactly the same way that the gas ring cooking their organic rice is not why the pan gets hot.

All-out CO2 maximization is clearly called for. “2,100 ppm by 2100!” Even if it doesn’t produce any warming, it will a) facilitate full exploitation of abundant hydrocarbon fuels, and b) make for faster-growing and more robust plants and crops. Both will be urgently needed.

Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:26 am
It may be good science. I am not questioning that. However, it does provide excellent cover for the Warmista to withdraw from their ridiculous positions. I bet they do, pronto.

_______

On the other hand, IF the said new Maunder Mininum does in fact take place as predicted, it will provide a wonderful chance to compare the climate of the new period with the previous quiet sun period. We’ve now got 40% more CO2 in the atmosphere than we had back then. If it makes no difference (i.e. Europe get’s just as cold now as it did then) then we can pretty much throw away any caring about CO2 levels. If however, it doesn’t get as cold, or temps just sort of flat-line for 20 or 30 years, that also will tell us a great deal about the effects of CO2…meaning of course, that CO2 will have turned out to be a blessing in disguise…at least for the next 20 or 30 years. A lot of IF’s here…exactly why it’s such an exciting time to be alive and watch what happens!

According to the space.com article, Hill said “If we are right, this could be the last solar maximum we’ll see for a few decades,” – “That would affect everything from space exploration to Earth’s climate.”

Mark Bowlin says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:58 am
Think I’ll adopt a wait and see attitude (much like my attitude on global warming). The solar “experts” were predicting SC24 to be a monster only a few years ago.

_____
A prudent course of action…and besides, when it comes to the sun, what else can we do!?

I forgot to mention that Seth Boringstein just wrote for ABC news:
“Scientists are predicting that the sun is heading into an unusual and extended super quiet mode. Around 2020, sunspots may disappear for years, maybe decades.
But scientists say it is nothing to worry about. The effects from a calmer sun are mostly good. There’d be fewer disruptions of satellites and power systems. And it might mean a little less increase in global warming.
It’s happened before, but not for a couple centuries.
Scientists at a solar physics conference in New Mexico unveiled their prediction based on sunspot activity, magnetic field strength and a disappearing solar jet stream.”

I like : maybe a little less increase in global warming. Phew, what a relief. Thank Heaven for that. Um, Seth-ster, do you own a parka,cuz’ you’re gonna need it.

Weren’t these some of the same people who predicted that SC24 would be one of the largest?
As WUWT readers here have stated or implied, we have seen the numbers for this cycle, and they are low.
Factors unknown are occuring on/in the sun, shouldn’t we be spending our $’s to learn more about it, than the billions on a trace gas..
Lets get the politics out of science, and get back to science.

I hope that this is taken seriously, but how can it with 20 years of green religion propagandists screaming that the sky is falling. Well, the sky didn’t fall, but now it could get really frigging cold. While all the green warmists were spending my tax dollars on solar powered wind mills, I was insulating my home and hoarding cheap oil.
I have no pity for the politicians, pseudo-scientists and activists who frittered my money away on their religion.

I’ve been following this closely at http://www.landscheidt.info/ The compare this sc with sc 5. Pretty amazing. If we are intering a grand minimum, we could be in for a rough ride in the next few years.

“Even a below-average cycle is capable of producing severe space weather,” points out Biesecker. “The great geomagnetic [Carrington event] storm of 1859, for instance, occurred during a solar cycle of about the same size we’re predicting for 2013.”

I asked Matt Drudge to provide a link to the space.com article linked in Anthony’s story. Hopefully this will get more publicity to the “sun’s” sunspot depressed status. In case you wanted to know how drudge links for weather and climate get on his website, here’s a one-time secret primer: http://www.coaps.fsu.edu/~maue/drudge_maue.png

R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:20 am
…A lot of IF’s here…exactly why it’s such an exciting time to be alive and watch what happens!
===========
I agree. The world is due to enter a cooling cycle anyway (ocean cycles) and if the sun’s activity actually does change it gives us a great opportunity to do some real science and learn some important things.

As far as the alarmists go, in 10 to 15 years they’ll be howling about the upcoming ice age. Again. Fire and Ice.

Let us not forget that the L&P paper was originally rejected for publication; why I never found out, but it is suspected that it was because it went against the warmahoilic religion. Luckily, Bill Livingston was persuaded to publish the paper on the web, and so we all could read it. Now, I gather it was presented ate the American Astronomical Society meeting; quite an accomplishment for a rejected paper.

There may be drammatic climate change and climate refugees but not in the way Warmists think.

Here is a link posted by a commenter on another thread – its about a “monumental solar eruption” that took place back on August 1, 2010.

Suite101.com – Jan 3rd 2011
“This monumental solar eruption may finally challenge the accepted theories about how the key driver of Earth’s climate actually works. Manuel sagely observes, “Although NASA seems to be catching up, after decades of ‘group-think’ it will be very difficult for NASA scientists to comprehend the Sun.”

Indeed, this latest evidence is unsettling not just for accepted ideas about how our Sun works but it also impacts assumptions of how the Sun effects Earth’s climate. Oliver insists “ Science is a continuous process of ‘truthing’ without ever claiming that you have the ‘whole truth.’””

“This a temporary reprieve. It buys us time. It is now imperative that the world seize this unexpected opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions to safe levels to avoid the catastrophic warming that will inevitably occur when Solar activity returns to normal.”

Here’s our comeback: “By then peak oil’s effect will have kicked in and our CO2 emissions will be in decline anyway.”

“It looks like Livingston and Penn are getting some long deserved recognition!”
Indeed! “Hats Off!” to Livingston and Penn, for continued solid work and to the American Astronomical Society for showcasing it!

Locally, our approximately normal temps 2010-11 winter and below average temperatures spring here in the Great NorthWet of USA has consumed 4.5 cords of my renewable, locally grown, eco-friendly, all organic (no growth hormones!), free range, humanely harvested biofuel….(aka ‘dry fire wood’ ) for my home heating needs. I have just a 1/2 cord left and am still firing the wood stove every other day or so to bring the house temps back to 70F and drive off the persistent humidity from our continued cool, wet weather!

Planning for next winter, I have +4 cords of new fire wood cut and about a third of it split for drying now. Me thinks it best to get the rest split pronto, for maximum drying during what may be a cooler and/or foreshortened summer and fall! And maybe add another cord or two as well……

I sure hope summer comes on a weekend…… so we can have a hike and a picnic on the shoulders of Mt. Stuart, up above the Teanaway river basin!

For you sci-fi fans, I recommend the following ‘return of the glaciers’ classic:
“Fallen Angels (1991) (ISBN 0-7434-3582-6) is a Prometheus Award-winning novel by science fiction authors Larry Niven, Jerry Pournelle, and Michael Flynn published by Jim Baen. The novel was written as a tribute to science fiction fandom, and includes many of its well-known figures, legends, and practices. It also champions modern technology and heaps scorn upon its critics – budget cutting politicians, fringe environmentalists and the forces of ignorance.”http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallen_Angels_%28science_fiction_novel%29

Mark Bowlin says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:58 am
Think I’ll adopt a wait and see attitude (much like my attitude on global warming). The solar “experts” were predicting SC24 to be a monster only a few years ago.

_____
A prudent course of action…and besides, when it comes to the sun, what else can we do!?

Funny, how many AGW deniers who reject any evidence from climate science which supports that there was global warming due to increase in greenhouse gases in the atmosphere or projections how the climate system may change due to a continuing increase in greenhouse gases, embrace some statements and predictions about sun activity with excitement as soon as it seems to be in agreement with their preconceived views. Suddenly uncertainty isn’t an urgent question anymore, or the understanding of the dynamics of the physical system in question, sun models not flawed and insufficient, or speaking about the accusation of fraud and conspiracy (I don’t say there was any).

Solar activity hasn’t increased for 30 years. Nevertheless, the last decade has been the warmest decade since 1880. What makes the AGW deniers think a decrease in solar activity, which would counteract the effect of greenhouse gases too some degree, would have a stronger cooling effect than the warming effect of greenhouse gases, if the concentration of latter in the atmosphere continues to increase? Global mean temperature during the Maunder Minimum was about 1 K below present day. So, even if the sun went into a state like during the Maunder Minimum, it wouldn’t subtract much from the likely temperature increase due to increasing greenhouse gases.

vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:02 am
But what is the cause? Don’t expect an answer from the regular science.

We are very lucky that the IPCC and mainstream climate science has ruled out the sun as a major driver of climate. No matter what happens with the sun we can be confident temperatures will continue to rise in step with CO2, once we are past hansen’s pinotubo dead cat bounce.

by Dr. Theodor Landscheidt
Schroeter Institute for Research in Cycles of Solar Activity
Klammerfelsweg 5, 93449 Waldmuenchen, Germany
Abstract: Analysis of the sun’s varying activity in the last two millennia indicates that contrary to the IPCC’s speculation about man-made global warming as high as 5.8° C within the next hundred years, a long period of cool climate with its coldest phase around 2030 is to be expected. It is shown that minima in the 80 to 90-year Gleissberg cycle of solar activity, coinciding with periods of cool climate on Earth, are consistently linked to an 83-year cycle in the change of the rotary force driving the sun’s oscillatory motion about the centre of mass of the solar systemhttp://bourabai.narod.ru/landscheidt/new-e.htm

R. Gates – it may not tell us anything about CO2. Given the timing this should be a deep grand minimum, like the Maunder. However, the Maunder occurred very near the bottom of the ca 1000 year cycle, but this DGM bottom will be about 70% of the way to the peak of the ca 1000 year cycle, so should not be as cold as the Maunder w or w/o CO2. My prediction – coldest near 2035, colder than the Dalton, but not as cold as the Maunder. See my Nov 16 and Jan 23 posts at http://www.agwnot.blogspot.com/ . Murray

Giant space mirrors just beyond earth’s solar orbit. Paint roofs and roads black, crank up the carbon black, remove sulphate aerosols from the atmosphere………change school curricula to include ice studies instead of science…..what’s happening on Mars? Set up new website called Realsun, rename IPCC as Ice Patrol Cold Coordination………. so much to do, so little time.

There is no need to be too concerned about climate on the account of the ‘L&P effect’, it is the North Atlantic which will give the lead. At the moment there is nothing there suggesting excessive cooling, it is by far too early to talk about anything below what was experienced in the 1960s/70s, and even that may take few years to reach.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/CET-NAP.htm

A reasonable prediction perhaps, but I’m still skeptical about those who give absolutely no weight to the 40% more CO2 we have now than during the Maunder. I am not a CAGW person, but I do think that the increased CO2 has some effect. To discount it completely seems a bit…one-sided…

Please allow me to make a sarcastic, but more predictable prediction based on my career as a regulator: If science can’t produce more consistent and reliable predicitions than all these climate predictions, we are just going to have to regulate science . For the good of science and the government regulation that science exists to support.

Taking our cue from the EPA and its “environmnmental justice,” let’s call it “scientific justice.” Science designed to combat the ills of unclear and indecisive facts and skepticism undermining beneficial government action on behalf of society. Heck, even call it the Scientific Protection Agency and ask the public to submit writings on what scientific justice means to them.

I’m guessing the planet will warm, cool or both. But I know that people’s fears and craving for control will cause government to corrupt science absolutely.

When i read this the first thought that poppoed in to my head..”ding dong the witch is dead, the wicked witch is dead”song from the Wizard of Oz.
Second thought was
S**T as a species we’re F****D if this comes off we are in serious doo do
Third thought. it’s only another prediction,based on yet another model!? one alarmism replaces another.
Guess we will have to wait and see where the climate go’s in the next few years…….lets hope it not another round of get your check book out goverment we need more research grants.If so this science malarkey will begin to wear a little thin on folks around the world.

As other wrote here anyone following this site should not be surprised at this announcement – nor do I feel any satisfaction our side is perhaps correct. The consequences of a cooler sun is almost to devastating to contemplate in its entirety. Especially for a planet fully trained in warmest propaganda expecting the exact opposite. Not to mention governments to this very moment fully geared up or gearing up for instituting warming policies world wide. IF time proves science even somewhat correct all of us live on a planet completely unprepared for this abrupt change in thinking and acting is indeed problematic on a planetary scale. The question is will society understand the ramifications what was announced today and will governments? We’re living near a knife-edge with food production as we write mostly due to terrible weather in North American growing regions, Australia, and many other parts of this planet. OR will our combined societies merely write this announcement off as technical jargon of no interest of the public at large?

I was at the EGU meeting in Vienna 2 year ago, and there were people predicting this then (not my field, I must add, but I was an interested observer). It’s good to see the research is continuing and being publishing and acknowledged.

“On the other hand, IF the said new Maunder Mininum does in fact take place as predicted, it will provide a wonderful chance to compare the climate of the new period with the previous quiet sun period. We’ve now got 40% more CO2 in the atmosphere than we had back then. If it makes no difference (i.e. Europe get’s just as cold now as it did then) then we can pretty much throw away any caring about CO2 levels.”

This assumes that we have a temperature measurement system that all people of good faith can trust and it assumes that we have a reasonable account of UHI, among other things. At this time, we have neither and the people with the bucks, Warmista, have no plans to address these problems to the satisfaction of critics.

It is time for someone or something very prominent to sound the alarm to the entire world:
A LITTLE ICE AGE has already begun.

The whole world must stand in awe, closely follow how bad the winters will get and prepare. Add heaters and insulation to houses because of the major cold, snow, ice, frozen pipes, etc. The recent brutal Northern Hemisphere winters will only get worse.

Ironic that the image of the sun looked blank just before this announcement which is occurring during what many are calling the solar MAXIMUM of solar cycle 24.

The predictions presented at the EGU were based on analysis of various solar activity patterns and trends, and currently there appears to be a confluence of several cycles of various lenths, all combining to create was was described as a “Grand Minimum”, similar to the Maunder Minimum.

“This a temporary reprieve. It buys us time. It is now imperative that the world seize this unexpected opportunity to reduce CO2 emissions to safe levels to avoid the catastrophic warming that will inevitably occur when Solar activity returns to normal.”

OK, OK, you guys might be right. I accept your point. It may be that science has no role to play in the fate of the Warmista propaganda campaign. However, if we are going to get steadily cooler because of something like a Maunder Minimum, then surely some ordinary people are going to label the Warmista as CO2-sky-god obsessed and conclude that they are not practicing serious science (because their obsession prevents them from taking seriously science of the sun, among other things).

> Let us not forget that the L&P paper was originally rejected for publication; why I never found out,

Science rejected it because it was a statistical paper and didn’t offer a hypothesis to explain the trend. I think they shouldn’t have started with Science, I think an astronomical journal would have been a better choice, but hey, I’m a software engineer, not a scientist.

This is a much better time to get the news out than a few years ago given that SC24 is getting lost in the wilderness.

The L&P observations are my favorite I-never-knew-that thing from WUWT, good to see it finally getting wider attention – and that the trend L&P documented is pretty much on track.

A good feather for the web’s cap (and especially WUWT), a miss for AAAS.

“. If it makes no difference (i.e. Europe get’s just as cold now as it did then) then we can pretty much throw away any caring about CO2 levels. If however, it doesn’t get as cold, or temps just sort of flat-line for 20 or 30 years, that also will tell us a great deal about the effects of CO2…meaning of course, that CO2 will have turned out to be a blessing in disguise…at least for the next 20 or 30 years.”

What are you on about? Are you putting on your parachute?

The warmanistas insist that there is only 0.1c difference between solar max and solar min. Therefore by the AGW theory, that you adhere to, then instead of increasing temps by 0.1c on top of the CO2 warming as we hit a solar max we will just experience a longstanding reduction of 0.1c which of course is insignificant as against a CO2 driven warming of 0.3c per decade.
So have you stopped believing in the AGW theory and have now moved to a solar driven position?

Hmm, it does rather look as though one of the bigger fish is beginning to cast worried looks in the same direction that a lot of us minnows have been for awhile. Not entirely surprising, but not welcome news for all that

Such fun we’re all going to have as we are “empowered” by our new, expensive, unreliable, centrally controlled energy supplies.

Wow, you guys are smart! (no irony intended). I would not understand the article
without your comments. I am science-uneducated. My son is a Ph.D. scientist who
tends to think he knows everything and still believes in the global warm.

The 58th Bilderberg Meeting will be held in Sitges, Spain 3 – 6 June 2010. The Conference will deal mainly with Financial Reform, Security, Cyber Technology, Energy, Pakistan, Afghanistan, World Food Problem, GLOBAL COOLING, Social Networking, Medical Science, EU-US relations. Approximately 130 participants will attend of whom about two-thirds come from Europe and the balance from North America. About one-third is from government and politics, and two-thirds are from finance, industry, labor, education, and communications. The meeting is private in order to encourage frank and open discussion.

“Conclusions
The precursor information detected during years 2000-2003 is very clear. If the situation
before the Dalton Minimum is repeated, it may be expected that the precursor information
will repeat around the next solar maximum and that the next Grand Minimum will start
approximately ten years from now. It is, of course, not possible to predict the severity of the
approaching minimum.”

But, on the claim made by Jones (referred to above) that there has been statistically significant warming over the last decade, this, from spaceweather.com earlier may be relevant:

“At a 2008 SORCE conference (Richard) Keen (uni of Colorado) reported that “the lunar eclipse record indicates a clear stratosphere over the past decade, and that this has contributed about 0.2 degrees to recent warming.””

R. Gates,
You keep repeating the 40% more CO2 number trying make mountain out of a mole hill. So what, we have gone from ~0.03 to ~ 0.039 % of the total atmosphere. Keeping in mind that water vapor is by far and away the dominate GHG, it’s like throwing another bucket of water in the ocean. Not to mention the fact that the effect of adding CO2 is not linear, I am not concerned.

That said, I am skeptical of the claims of this article as well. The proof will be in the pudding and I hope to God they are wrong. I like my world warm!

Theo Goodwin says:
June 14, 2011 at 1:28 pm (Edit)
Now do we get to discuss the history of the Maunder Minimum? How far must temperatures drop for the Thames to be frozen for months at a time and support indefinitely large numbers of skaters?

dtbronzich says:Robert Felix has been justified by this, I think. I only hope that this is a precursor to a “little” Ice Age, and not a greater one.

This is what concerns me – when I look at the graphs indicating the previous ice ages and interglacials, it looks like the time is just about right for the current interglacial to be ending. What if the LIA was a precursor?

Although it won’t really matter to us – even if we ARE entering a full-blown ice age, the decline will take longer than any of us will live to see.

Story from the future
Once there was harmony between man and the nature, there was harmony between the Sun and the Earth, there was harmony between the sunspot count and the temperature records. Accurate temperatures were recorded since 1850, sunspots since were accurately counted too. Everything was a hunky-dory, correlation between the sunspot count and the temperature change was comfortingly high. Science was a pleasure to do.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/ST.htm
Then cometh the 1950s cometh the man with the nuclear explosions. The Earth became angry, its magnetic field got shaken to its core, it decided to hit the man with an ice age (remember 1960’s theories). Man retaliated with excessive CO2 emissions (remember 1990/2000s theories) overheated the atmosphere, everything went haywire, harmony (and the correlation) were destroyed for decades and centuries since.

Looks like msnbc is leaning on cooler times as well. Shoot, its their headline for the article. There’s some spin, but not as much as I’d think.

Nail in GW coffin.

Thanks for that link. Gavin Schmidt is quoted extensively in that article. He says even if there is another Maunder Minimum, the effect of greenhouse-gas emissions would be on the order of 10 times as great. “What you might see over a 20- to 30-year period is a slight slowdown in the pace of warming,” Schmidt said. “In terms of how we should think about climate change prediction in the future, reducing emissions and so on, it really wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

From NBC News: Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the founders of the RealClimate blog said the effects of solar activity on climate over the past 30 years have been “at the margin of what we can detect. If we were to see a return to what’s called Maunder Minimum conditions in the next 50 years or so, that would be interesting,” Schmidt said. “I think we’d learn a lot about solar physics and solar variability. … It’s going to be scientifically very exciting if all this pans out.”

Even then, however, he estimated that the effect of greenhouse-gas emissions would be on the order of 10 times as great. “What you might see over a 20- to 30-year period is a slight slowdown in the pace of warming,” Schmidt said. “In terms of how we should think about climate change prediction in the future, reducing emissions and so on, it really wouldn’t make much of a difference.”

There you have it – the Global Warming machine’s approach to this this announcement – nothing here, move along.

“Since the next maximum is still estimated to be at 2013, there’s absolutely no cause for alarm. If no substantial change occurs in the next couple of years, then perhaps that’s the time when we should start worrying.”

This situation was what the crazed climate hippies wanted in the 70’s when they shrieked about the coming ice age and people getting ice cubed before taking their merry time to turn to CAGW and people suffering year long heat strokes, all proven by models of course.

A good way to test the accuracy of models is to model the sunspot activity, I’m sure, but of course nobody wants to fail in real time time and time again.

However it is always nice to note that there are at least some scientists who’s scientific observations doesn’t automatically land them in the denier camp. Although cheap solar telescopes could be the actual cause for latter though. :p

Oh great, more predictions. Sorry for my cynism, but I doubt this will be anything but a lower than average activity cycle. Yet true enough, global cooling is coming… no, ice age even! We really don’t know the full effect the sun has on the climate. Of course it’s the driving factor, and logic dictates that less activity means less heat. However, logic also dictates that more CO2 means more heat. It’s all about the details.

From NBC News: Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and one of the founders of the RealClimate blog said the effects of solar activity on climate over the past 30 years have been “at the margin of what we can detect.”

John from CA says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:47 amI’m more than a bit concerned about the erratic behavior of the sun in this cycle. It isn’t as simplistic as a dimmer switch.
solar activity occurs in spurts which are more visble in weak cycles. Compare with solar cycle 14:

vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:02 amshows that the polar fields may not switch polarity some time in the near future.
Except that the North Polar fields have already reversed.

kramer says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:21 amIf I remember correctly, this goes against Leif’s point of view.
I have been supporting L&P for quite some time. E.g. slide 14ff of http://www.leif.org/research/Eddy-Symp-Poster-2.pdf and I’m a coauthor of their poster.
On the other hand it is a bit of a surprise that the polar fields are reversing already now [The north has already, and the South is well on its way]. This means that the rise time of cycle 24 may be short which might provide extra time for a build-up of a large new polar field and following cycle. Now, it is possible that the polar fields will fluctuate and thus not firmly reverse for some time. We don’t know.

Jim Cripwell says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:47 amLet us not forget that the L&P paper was originally rejected for publication; why I never found out, but it is suspected that it was because it went against the warmahoilic religion.
Mostly because he didn’t have enough data. Now we have twice as much and it looks better. Since we don’t know the cause of this, the L&P effect is still numerology as it could reverse tomorrow. At best, the recognition of the L&P effect could make people begin to think about the possibility that it might be real, rather than dismissing it out of hand.

—–

Everybody and his brother that now come out of the woodwork saying that their pet theory predicted a small SC24 [long ago] can, of course, not declare victory as many others did the same. The trick is to be right when nobody else is.

Svensmark has been theorizing since 1996. He’s been EXPERIMENTING since 2000 !!! He’s got CERN doing the cloud experiment. CERN has done the work. They are PHYSICISTS not “climate scientists”. (Can we say IMPARTIAL, can we say NO AXES TO GRIND?) CERN’s boys have been VERY VERY quiet about their results because they are writing BONIFIDE papers. And there is a little self respect, and proprietary aspect here. (After all, how many people have a multi billion dollar accelerator to make synthetic (controlled) “cosmic rays”.)

If I were a typical “Warmista” right now, I’d be SHAKING IN FEAR. Because the combination: SOLAR MAUNDER TYPE MINIMUM + Svensmark + CERN could spell a nasty doom for the Warmistas. (Whoops, I didn’t even mention the NEGATIVE FEEDBACK by Dr. Spencer.)

This is big. Will it make the MSM? That will be interesting – to see what vestige is left of an impartial media.

In all the excitement WUWT readers should be cautious about overstating the case for solar control / driving of climate. It is already clear that there is no tightly correlated direct driving of global temperature by any solar parameter. If there is forcing, it is weak forcing of a nonlinear oscillator, such that the relationship between the forcing and the forced frequencies is complex. Those trawling through statistical permutations of solar parameters for magical climate correlations will thus ultimately be disappointed. As this solar L&P downturn gains media attention, we need to avoid giving the AGW camp a rod for our own backs. The sun does not directly control climate. There’s a bit more to it than that.

It has some effect, but remember that it is a trace gas, and is routinely .3 to .03 times less than H2O (RH).
We will run out of fossil fuels long before we burn enough of it to produce the requisite 1500 ppm to equal the RH on a desert-dry day.

In view of the fact that the world has still been warming since the last solar maxiumum, despite the deepest and longest solar minimum for a century, I think it would be wildly optimistic to expect a quiet sun to save us from dangerous anthropogenic warming… especially as greenhouse gas emissions have continued to increase even during the global recession.

The margin of what we can detect………….. (Then you have to add or subtract their thermometer degree of accuracy )

I recall this remark from here @ WUWT…..which I found very interesting.. and pertinent here.
‘……………..
\ 1. John Blake says:
January 18, 2011 at 3:10 pm
For NASA’s information, the Maunder Minimum is conventionally dated over seventy years, from 1645 – 1715, when wolves froze to death in Rhineland forests and wine frosted over in Louis XIV’s goblet in his palace of Versailles. The subsequent Dalton Minimum persisted over forty years from c. 1790 – 1830, marking the final cold-snap of Earth’s 500-year Little Ice Age (LIA) before the precipitate rebound that began c. 1890 – 1939 (fifty years), alternating warming with cooling phases in 1940 – 1979 (forty years), 1980 – 2009 (thirty years), now 2010 – 2029 (twenty years).
On this basis, after about 2030 the global thermostat –apparently there is such a thing– will shake itself to pieces, simultaneously attempting to switch both On and Off. As cyclic wavelengths diminish, so weather-events’ amplitudes and frequencies will increase in proportion. Though chaotic, non-linear, complex dynamic systems are inherently unpredictable in detail (Edward Lorenz, 1960 – ’64), cyclical phenomena in context of long-term secular trends are well-defined.
Yes, global temperatures have been increasing since the LIA petered out from c. 1890; indeed, the thirty-year period 1980 – 2009 represented a cyclical warm-phase. But this involved no anthropogenic CO2 nor any other “forcing mechanism,” and populations now face an end to Earth’s “long summer,” our current 12,250-year Holocene Interglacial Epoch long overdue for a resurgence of median 102,000-year Pleistocene Ice Time.
Green Gangsters such as Briffa, Hansen, Jones, Mann, Trenberth et al. join Luddite sociopaths like Paul Ehrlich, John Holdren, latterly Keith Farnish, in abominating post-Enlightenment industrial/technological civilization and all its works. Over the next several generations, their brutal handiwork will likely result in mega-deaths………………..’

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 14, 2011 at 2:42 pm..shows that the polar fields may not switch polarity some time in the near future. ..Except that the North Polar fields have already reversed.

I was referring to my graphhttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/LFC2.htm
sometime past 2020.
You were referring to last few weeks, but you are already out of date with your own data. PF gone back again, I would expect PF to move back and forward for at least 6 months to a year on a weak cycle as SC24.
2011:03:19 5N
2011:03:29 -6N
2011:04:08 -4N
2011:04:18 -0N
2011:04:28 0N
2011:05:08 1N
2011:05:18 -4N

Do you still predict SC25 to be considerably higher than SC24, and if so on what basis?
If not so what made you reverse your position?

I figured this kind of sentiment was coming . . . part of the behavioral cycle of “dangerous anthropogenic” domination . . . Icarus are we are ALL supposed to be freezing about now? Simply because we may not ‘see’ it the same way Icarus and those like him do . . .

Statistically significant cooling in the future is not a possibility as long as we continue to fund GISS, and USHCN v3 will doubtless show that the past was even colder than previously thought. I don’t think we’ll see much about this in the MSM since it goes against the consensus of all serious peer reviewed science, and the public won’t buy that increasing regulation and taxes will have much effect on the sun.

AW Would make this or combination as top post for some time. The fact is even MSM is now aware that it MAY cause cooling this will probably be enough to stop the whole AGW movement in its track probably right now These are THREE INDEPENDENT findings thats why it was announced as an important notification.

Also I think if you observe sea surface temperatures at AMSU satellite tempertaures, there is no flip flop to higher temperatures at this stage which usually occurs in the transition from La nina to el nino. Just pure speculation but noteworthy?

So CO2 has gone up by 40% ? It is still only up by 100ppm.
Water vapor is 10,000 to 40,000 ppm so total GHGs has gone up by between 0.25 and 1%.
Big deal!
This likely why we can’t find any effects without manufacturing them by torturing the data until it confesses.

I just plotted L&P data available from start of 2009 to the latest data in 2011.http://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&P.htm
I see no change!
I see no L&P effect.!
Are we being taken for a ride?
Dr. Svalgaard is there something in the last two year data that is not visible in the above graph ?

REPLY: Vuk, before you start another war of words with Dr. Svalgaard (that we all get really weary of), double check your work. Note the main data points in vertical aggregated columns and the average of those columns. You missed a step. – Anthony

On the other hand, IF the said new Maunder Mininum does in fact take place as predicted, it will provide a wonderful chance to compare the climate of the new period with the previous quiet sun period. We’ve now got 40% more CO2 in the atmosphere than we had back then. If it makes no difference (i.e. Europe get’s just as cold now as it did then) then we can pretty much throw away any caring about CO2 levels. If however, it doesn’t get as cold, or temps just sort of flat-line for 20 or 30 years, that also will tell us a great deal about the effects of CO2…meaning of course, that CO2 will have turned out to be a blessing in disguise…at least for the next 20 or 30 years. A lot of IF’s here…exactly why it’s such an exciting time to be alive and watch what happens!

If these predictions prove correct, I don’t see it as a good thing for the ‘sceptical’ cause.

As the years have passed, and all other things being equal, the wilder predictions/timescales of the AGW religion have gradually been being discredited, and looked to continue so until the whole phoney hypothesis collapsed.

If we now suddenly enter a cooling period which can definitely be attributed directly to the sun, then the High Priests are off the hook – their models are terribly, terribly accurate but an external influence that they couldn’t reasonably incorporate has invalidated their results.

So they’ll still be in business – ad infinitum – government grants, renewable energy, carbon scams and all.

Svensmark has been theorizing since 1996. He’s been EXPERIMENTING since 2000 !!! He’s got CERN doing the cloud experiment. CERN has done the work. They are PHYSICISTS not “climate scientists”. (Can we say IMPARTIAL, can we say NO AXES TO GRIND?) CERN’s boys have been VERY VERY quiet about their results because they are writing BONIFIDE papers. And there is a little self respect, and proprietary aspect here. (After all, how many people have a multi billion dollar accelerator to make synthetic (controlled) “cosmic rays”.)

If I were a typical “Warmista” right now, I’d be SHAKING IN FEAR. Because the combination: SOLAR MAUNDER TYPE MINIMUM + Svensmark + CERN could spell a nasty doom for the Warmistas. (Whoops, I didn’t even mention the NEGATIVE FEEDBACK by Dr. Spencer.)

Max

_______

It’s this kind of over-the-top certitude by skeptics using way too many large caps, and phrases like “shaking in fear” that make me glad that I maintain a reasonable and balanced approach to the study of climate. I can well believe that there is a Solar/GCR/cloud/climate connection, and suspect it may play out in phenomenon like Bond events and other long-term solar cycles, but accepting that as a possibility in no way precludes accepting that the highest level of CO2 in the atmosphere could also play a role in altering the climate. The world is not black and white, one thing or the other, but many shades of gray and colors with complex interacting causes.

vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:07 pm2011:05:18 -4N
The error is of the order of 5uT, so all the values are consistent with zero.

Do you still predict SC25 to be considerably higher than SC24, and if so on what basis?
If the polar fields reverse now or shortly [rather than in 2014] it means that further surges of flux to the poles can directly help build up the polar fields, instead of as usual first having to neutralize the existing fields. This could mean that strong polar fields are a possibility and hence a strong SC25. But that is just speculation [in contrast to my prediction once polar fields have been established].

If not so what made you reverse your position?
I have not reversed my position. It has always been that I can only with confidence predict one cycle ahead and only when the new polar fields are known. Statistically, low cycles often occur together [but not always: SC20 was a lone low one between two high ones], so statistically SC25 should be low, but that is not a prediction, just a shaky extrapolation.

vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:46 pmI just plotted L&P data available from start of 2009 to the latest data in 2011.
I see no change! I see no L&P effect.!
I would not attach any meaning to two years of spotty data. BTW, the ‘latest’ data goes through May, 2011. A fit to magnetic field 2009 Jan. – 2011 May shows a decrease of 57 uT and an increase of intensity of 0.036. But both are too uncertain to be meaningful on their own. Only taken over a decade do the changes become interesting. One way to see this is to draw up the distribution of field strengths as a function of time: http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston-Penn-Distribution.png

Has anyone been looking at the latest butterfly diagram of this cycle and comparing it to prior cycles. Cycle 24 appears to be fairly unique. There appear to be fewer pole-ward spots of note and the notable spots appear to be diving rapidly closer to the equator. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if this cycle petered out early as predicted by L&P.

Leif, while L&P is certainly numerology solar physics is still in its infancy ie we cant yet explain why the corona is hotter than the sun’s surface, nor explain the mechanisms behind solar flares or sunspots. So any predictions of solar activity and the effect on the Earth could be considered to be numerology at this stage, and will be until we have a consistent solar model that at least explains its main features (despite the protestations of solar scientists, the current model of the sun does not adequately explain the sun’s operation, and the inability to understand the changes it undergoes underline that point).

It’ll be an interesting period for science, and especially solar science, if in fact the sunspot numbers do decline into a longer-term minimum.

To those who are complaining that temperatures have not declined despite the decline in solar activity i have two points to make. Firstly, the Earth’s climate does not respond instantly to changes in the external environment. Think of it as an engine with a heavy flywheel attached, there is a certain amount of inertia in the climate system and the effects of changes in solar activity involve a lag. The effects of solar changes have thus far not been adequately studied; usually TSI is examined, found not to have changed significantly and the sun’s effect on climate is dismissed. There are far more subtle effects going on that the TSI investigations would not pick up, and certainly there are interactions between the sun and earth that we do not understand well enough (Svensmark’s work highlights this clearly, and solar magnetism appears to be far more important than we have allowed for in the past).

Secondly, you are making your claims based on a temperature statistic that bears no reality to what the climate is actually doing. The global ‘temperature’ (and i am loathe to call it that) anomaly is not a physically real quantity, but merely a derived statistic to approximate an average of the world’s climate. Rising ‘global’ temperatures actually dont have physical effects, it is rising local and regional temperatures that we should be keeping an eye on because that tells us how the globe is actually reacting. Basing theory or policy based on a construction global average is poor science and misleading.

My advice to all is not to get hung up about predictions of global warming or cooling, but to settle in and hope that we learn a hell of a lot about our sun and our climate in the next couple of decades. It could be a period of significant scientific enlightenment and that gets me excited.

Yes, for the issue of the statistical significance of the global warming trend, 15 years are only a few years. Global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases is a process over many decades and even centuries. There has been a statistically significant warming trend over the last century, which even includes a time period of about three decades w/o warming in the middle of last century, even some cooling during this time.

And the globally averaged temperature hasn’t been flat since 1995. It has increased with a trend over this time interval that is just somewhat below or somewhat above 95% statistical confidence. So it is already statistically significant with 94, 93, or at least 90% confidence. I think it is likely that the trend, taking the same start point of the interval, will exceed the 95% confidence threshold more clearly within a few years.

mikemUK says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:57 pm
…………………….
If we now suddenly enter a cooling period which can definitely be attributed directly to the sun, then the High Priests are off the hook – their models are terribly, terribly accurate but an external influence that they couldn’t reasonably incorporate has invalidated their results.

But the warming alarm would be over. Funding of warming alarm would wither. Certain bogus careers would end in shame.

I can see all the hippies in 20 years sitting around a coal burning wood stove telling there starving grandkids about the good old days when we used to process all our food into green energy to save the planet.

R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm
“………….the highest level of CO2 in the atmosphere could also play a role in altering the climate. …..”

Was that a typo or have I taken it COMPLETELY out of context???

“Parks Canada had been plotting the discovery of the three ships for more than a year, trying to figure out how to get the crews so far north. Once they arrived and got their bearings, the task seemed easier than originally thought. It took little more than 15 minutes to uncover the Investigator, officials told The Globe and Mail last week. “For a long time the area wasn’t open, but now it is because of climate change,” said Marc-André Bernier, chief of the Underwater Archaeology Service at Parks Canada.”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/150-year-old-naval-vessel-found-underwater-in-arctic/article1661210/

A lot of IF’s here…exactly why it’s such an exciting time to be alive and watch what happens

I actually look forward to the long faces of the AGW deniers, who think some news from solar research about a possible decrease in solar activity over the next decades refute the established science on global warming, when the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases continues over the next decades, despite decreasing solar activity, if latter happens. A continuing warming, particularly if it was significantly more than just 1 or 2 Kelvin, perhaps even to values like during the PETM, which has a non-negligible probability, would be bad for humankind, but good for my ego. The deniers probably would resort to even more obscure arguments and conspiracy theories, though.

Otherwise, good for humankind, bad for my ego, if I had to come to the conclusion I was wrong.

Leif: “Everybody and his brother that now come out of the woodwork saying that their pet theory predicted a small SC24 [long ago] can, of course, not declare victory as many others did the same. The trick is to be right when nobody else is.”

I remember the solar prediction chart that came out about 3 years ago. Everything from an extremely powerful 24 to an extremely weak 24 and all the possibilities in between were covered by someone’s prediction. With all that variation it’s hard to tell if the right prediction will be the skilled one or the lucky one. We’ll know that most were not skilled and a few are still in the running. I believe that you fall into the “still in the running” camp.

Not to worry….the cooling caused by Svensmark’s cosmic ray cloud formation and sudden aerosols from exploding volcanoes in Chile and Eritrea will be nicely balanced by all of the methane releases produced during fracking operations for shale natural gas recovery.

Mike McMillan says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:14 pm
“Statistically significant cooling in the future is not a possibility as long as we continue to fund GISS, and USHCN v3 will doubtless show that the past was even colder than previously thought.”

Yes, probably tomorrow Hansen and Schmidt will come out with papers proving that the 1930s were just as cold as we thought the LIttle Ice Age was. Then, if the new Maunder Minimum does materialize, they will come out with papers proving that the Little Ice Age was so cold that it actually killed 99% of all humans alive at the time.

pete says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:37 pmLeif, while L&P is certainly numerology solar physics is still in its infancy ie we cant yet explain why the corona is hotter than the sun’s surface, nor explain the mechanisms behind solar flares or sunspots.
We can explain the hot corona and the flares. It is just that we have too many explanations that are all plausible and cannot decide which one is the right one. Possibly there are more than one.

So any predictions of solar activity and the effect on the Earth could be considered to be numerology at this stage
We can [or rather I can, or claim to, based on solid physics] predict solar activity. Its effect on the Earth’s lower atmosphere is likely still numerology [on the upper atmosphere, solid physics].and will be until we have a consistent solar model that at least explains its main features (despite the protestations of solar scientists, the current model of the sun does not adequately explain the sun’s operation, and the inability to understand the changes it undergoes underline that point)
Again the problem is too many explanations [see e.g. Brandenburg: http://arxiv.org/abs/astro-ph/0502275 ].

Tilo Reber says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:30 pmI believe that you fall into the “still in the running” camp.
Looks like it, and I’m, of course, not surprised :-)

Ed Mertin says:
June 14, 2011 at 7:04 pmLeif, what is your outlook for the future? Warm, cold?Since I don’t think the Sun has much to do with the climate [a tenth or so degree at most], I can’t extrapolate from solar activity to Earth environment. We said so in the last sentence of our SPD abstract: “We do not understand the physical mechanism behind these changes or the effect, if any, it will have on the Earth environment.”

Always amusing when the true believers come here and leave their crumbs over a thread where actual scientific discussion is happening. If they weren’t so economically dangerous, warmistas would be kinda cute.

The world we know to-day, cannot exist on a cooling Earth. Only a continuing warming, with enhanced CO2 induced growth, with more available moisture, can possibly sustain peak population. Any cooling will quickly manifest by rapid decrease in agra yields and the disappearance of food surplus. Cold will quickly teach the world – What misery really means. It was the purpose of such tales as Hansel and Gretel.

I find it somewhat ironic that at this time, mankind is striving mightily, laboriously, to prevent a warming trend and magnify cooling effects. God help us! GK

A Maunder minimum redux is truly inconvenient should it come to pass. I’m not worried about harsh winters – those we already have here in the PNWet. But we’ve just had a cool spring and a very cool (relative, subjective opinions) late spring. I am at retirement age and would like to have had continued warmth so that I could enjoy traveling around the US by motorcycle. Traveling by snowplow never entered into the route planning.

Second – Oz and the formerly great Britain will reverse their race to self-destruct their economies, leaving no opportunities to those countries not crazed beyond all belief by the alarmist message.

A metric to watch now – agriculture insurance. Especially in Canada and the northern tier of the US. Insurance companies are early adopters of radical change indicators. Watch grain futures, and stockpiles. Pay attention to who stockpiles grain around the world. Those are the smart ones.

If this proposed solar change produces a substantial increase in rainfall in the Hawaiian Islands, keep track of earthquakes there. A rapid water accumulation in the flanks of Mauna Loa may be what it takes to burden, weaken, and lubricate the deeply fractured lava layers of the southwestern lava hazard zones, 3 and 6. Sloughing off lava hazard zones 3 and 6 into the sea will produce quite an tsunami. Aloha oe, Pahala. The sea beckons.

Dress warm and take your vitamins. Jack Frost is coming to call. No more Florida oranges – the temperate zone is heading south for a while.

Tongue in cheek or not they are capable of doing just that. Don’t forget that earlier in this new century the city of Aliso Viejo in Southern California got to the second reading of an ordinance to ban dihydrogen monoxide (water) from their borders.

I actually look forward to the long faces of the AGW deniers, who think some news from solar research about a possible decrease in solar activity over the next decades refute the established science on global warming, when the warming due to increases in greenhouse gases continues over the next decades, despite decreasing solar activity, if latter happens. A continuing warming … would be bad for humankind, but good for my ego.

Sunspots reaching 1,000-year high
By Dr David Whitehouse
BBC – JULY 2004

A new analysis shows that the Sun is more active now than it has been at anytime in the previous 1,000 years.
Scientists based at the Institute for Astronomy in Zurich used ice cores from Greenland to construct a picture of our star’s activity in the past.

THE number of sunspots has declined dramatically in the past two years – but scientists say it is too early to tell if it is the start of a solar depression that could lead to cooler weather on Earth.

Over the past millennium, whenever the sun has had long periods of low sunspot numbers, Earth has weathered equally long cold snaps. The most famous of these was the Maunder Minimum of 1645 to 1715, when sunspots all but vanished for 70 years. It coincided with the coldest period of the Little Ice Age.

For the past two years, sunspots – dark and intensely magnetic blotches on the sun’s surface – have been at their fewest since 1913.
~~~~~~~~~~~~

‘Quiet Sun’ baffling astronomers
BBC – 2009
[…]

In the mid-17th Century, a quiet spell – known as the Maunder Minimum – lasted 70 years, and led to a “mini ice-age”.
This has resulted in some people suggesting that a similar cooling might offset the impact of climate change.
According to Prof Mike Lockwood of Southampton University, this view is too simplistic.
[…]
“If the Sun’s dimming were to have a cooling effect, we’d have seen it by now. ”http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8008473.stm
~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The torsional oscillation and solar pole research is interesting but the L&P claims are not robust. The L&P research has only shown us that the speck ratio has increased during SC24. The overall magnetic strength of sunspots has decreased inline with reducing solar cycles but the magnetic signature has followed the solar cycles. It rises towards cycle max and decreases towards cycle minimum. This has not been picked up in L&P’s research because of bad science and methodology in relation to their record keeping.

Until L&P can show why my graph on all sunspot contrast for SC24 is wrong their claims cannot be taken seriously.

Trying to spread the news to a warmist friend I was looking for a link for the medieval warming period. The wikipedia one still has a nice hokey stick with present temperatures way over the medieval times. It does have a little ice age there though. Some sleight of hand is still going on.

Well, I’m going to be a contrarian thinker. I don’t often do herd mentalities. Solar cycle 15 was pretty weak and choppy except for one high spike. We have been running a volcano eruption rate like the 1930’s in the last three years. The Dabro eruption in Eritrea, though no VEI estimates are solid yet, if it rates a VEI-5 that would strengthen the comparison to the 1930’s. The stratosphere is not getting loaded with SO2 as a Pinatubo would do. The 1930’s had some very harsh winters, floods, late springs, cool summers and some record heat/drought summers that blew a lot of topsoil away in the plains. A brew of volcanic gasses and aerosols that varied in altitudes perturbing the world weather. Good news is that it didn’t last and maybe this won’t either.

The statement is that the sun cycles look like the Maunder minimum cycles , not the 1930’s. Astronomers would not make such a blunder. The only question is how much the energy output towards the earth is affected by the sunspot etc cycles.

Leif has been arguing previously that the differences in energy towards the earth from cycle to cycle are too small to make a difference in watts/m^**2. The data from the medieval warm period are proxy data, and it might just be a coincidence that the Maunder minimum coincided with the little ice age. Time will show.

Boy, I thumped this issue hard during the early days of the Climategate scandal on this WUWT site.
I rode this subject like a, well here I should not say that word.
I posted may articles such as this one that gave me a heads up on the influence of our sun and what it was doing;
Solar Activity And Climate Change: New Sun-Watching Satellite To Monitor Sunlight Fluctuationshttp://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/03/090328163643.htm
I prayed the caretakers of the universe would give us an extended solar minimum to teach those who needed it what is ultimately in charge of the Earth’s climate. I have not been disappointed. I monitor the sunspot activity every day. Very quiet indeed.

If and when we transition into the next major glaciation, those of us with neanderthalish traits may have the advantage. Our short, stocky builds conserve heat well, and I for one am miserable when the temps get above 75f. As arable farmland and temperate fruit trees decrease in extent, tundra and inedible(to humans) boreal coniferous forest adjusts to lower latitudes, which means we would have to rely upon herbivores who are able to digest boreal plant matter. I seem to do well on a carnivorous diet, it’s sugar and refined starches that mess me up. Although I’ve heard that musk ox and yak steaks are quite gamey compared to USDA beef. Our large brains allow us to be resourceful and frugal in the challenging cold environment.

Khwarizmi says:
June 14, 2011 at 10:39 pm
For the past two years, sunspots – dark and intensely magnetic blotches on the sun’s surface – have been at their fewest since 1913.

1913? Wasn’t that just about the time early 20th century warming kicked in? Not the most convincing argument for a sun/climate link.

According to Prof Mike Lockwood of Southampton University, this view is too simplistic.

“If the Sun’s dimming were to have a cooling effect, we’d have seen it by now

“We’d have seen it by now” — if only we would open our eyes.

No we haven’t. According to UAH, 2010 was as warm as the highly anomalous El Nino year of 1998. Temperatures during the recent La Nina (2008 & 2011) have been as high – if not higher – than during El Nino phases years in the 1980s.

Note the Oct 2005 dip in Anthony’s Solar Ap Progression chart above. Solar Activity is now at a level last seen in ~1900 – and has been for some time. Now imagine this: Let’s say all the world’s major governments had raised taxes to fund a project which would remove most of the excess CO2 from the atmosphere. This project was completed in 2005 and since then CO2 levels had been steady at ~295 ppm (1900 levels)

What would the reaction on this blog be if, 5 years later, we had the equal warmest year on record followed by the warmest La Nina year on record?

Lockwood’s right. Solar activity has been in decline since the early 1990s. There is no evidence of a decline in temperatures and a few articles documenting the odd cold event isn’t going to change that.

REPLY: Vuk, before you start another war of words with Dr. Svalgaard (that we all get really weary of), double check your work. Note the main data points in vertical aggregated columns and the average of those columns. You missed a step. – Anthony

Point taken, my post was obviously too aggressive and I do apologise.
I accept ‘L&P effect’ as an important discovery, however I think its importance may be a bit overblown.
I have reproduced Dr. Svalgaard’s distribution diagramhttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&Pd.htm
and added SSN for each period in the same colours.
What I see is: as the SSN moves down slope, solar magnetic field does the same, and as the SSN is picking up in 2011, the magnetic field is moving up in intensity as well. This is indicated with colour arrows on the graph.
Just my personal observation.

Keep pushing Vuk, I also have great doubts on the validity of the so called L&P effect. This is a science blog where theories are put to the test, I am surprised Anthony is accepting this weak theory with a very poor data. What is required is an open forum where this can be thrashed out instead of blindly following the rhetoric, otherwise we fall into the same trap as those blogs that promote AGW.

Lockwood’s right. Solar activity has been in decline since the early 1990s. There is no evidence of a decline in temperatures and a few articles documenting the odd cold event isn’t going to change that.

Judith Lean of NASA reacted to yesterday’s news thusly:

[This] “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat — and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade,”

Now, doesn’t that mean Judith Lean of NASA believes the solar effect is about equal to the co2 effect in strength?

So the warmists have laid down the guantlet so to speak. If there is substantial cooling over the next 20 years, then any reasonable person could conclude that there theory is disproven. They have claimed that the sun has neglible affect on the climate and CO2 is the main driver.

If the Svensmark theory is correct, then it is the sun’s magnetic field that is important. The number of sun spots is a proxy for magnetic field strength. The sun’s magnetic field is weakening now. We could start seeing cooling in the next year or two, depending on what the thermal lag of the oceans turns out to be.

[This] “cancelled part of the greenhouse gas warming of the period 2000-2008, causing the net global surface temperature to remain approximately flat — and leading to the big debate of why the Earth hadn’t (been) warming in the past decade,”

Now, doesn’t that mean Judith Lean of NASA believes the solar effect is about equal to the co2 effect in strength?

She is comparing to the effect, which is caused by the change in CO2 from 2000 to 2008. So yes, she apparently believes, that the effect of a missing solar maximum would equal to the effect of the differential CO2 over a time period of less than 10 years.

I doubt that there will be many deaths, even if we fall back into another little ice age. The reason for this is the world is a vastly different place than it was back then. At the start of the little ice age, the vast majority of the world’s population was one bad harvest away from starvation, even in the best of times.

Today we are awash in food, even to the point that we can afford to pay farmers not to farm. Last year, 30% of the US’s corn crop was used to make fuel for cars. Land that becomes to cold to grow food crops, can still be used to raise cattle. I suspect that when food prices start going up, resistance to GM crops will start to melt away. That will enable us to grow more food on fewer acres. I also suspect that the organic movement will fizzle out as well, also increasing crop yields. In the US northeast, there are large areas that used to grow crops, but were allowed to go fallow because they could not compete with the large farms of the midwest. Those areas could be opened up again. Backyard gardens (victory gardens) could become the norm again.

We have plenty of spare capacity built into the system. No need to panic.

It has been my experience that when systems being studied start doing unexplained things, it is a great opportunity to study and learn.
The sun is doing things right now that it has not done since the advent of modern astronomy. These things are making a hash of many established theories of how the sun works. I have a feeling that we will learn more about the sun works in the next decade or two, than was learned at any time previous.

Now, doesn’t that mean Judith Lean of NASA believes the solar effect is about equal to the co2 effect in strength?

It would seem to imply that she believes the solar effect is roughly equal to a decade’s worth of CO2 increases (~20 ppm). Presumably, if she thought that it was of equal stength she would expect temperatures to drop by whatever amount CO2 was responsible for.

It looks as though the solar max ->solar min estimate of a 0.1 deg drop in temperature is about right

This is also a great opportunity to observe the silence at the major news services, other than Fox News. It may turn out to be a rare glimpse into how information was muffled during the Dark Ages and during the Soviet era. Any information that does not fit the official bias is to be ignored or silenced.

Geoff Sharp says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:12 pmThis has not been picked up in L&P’s research because of bad science and methodology in relation to their record keeping.
These are serious and unfounded accusations directed towards one of the most eminent solar observers in the world. Shame on you.

vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:22 amWhat I see is: as the SSN moves down slope, solar magnetic field does the same, and as the SSN is picking up in 2011, the magnetic field is moving up in intensity as well.

A proper analysis would compare years with same sunspot numbers, like in this table:
SSN Median Average Year
_2.9 2217 2191 2008
_3.1 2046 2040 2009

15.2 2180 2215 2006
16.5 2026 2074 2010

29.9 2810 2817 1994
29.8 2199 2230 2005

40.4 2277 2291 2004
40.5 1988 2033 2011

111 2516 2539 2001
104 2447 2482 2002

In every case the later year has lower magnetic field for same sunspot number.

Geoff Sharp says:
June 14, 2011 at 11:12 pm
This has not been picked up in L&P’s research because of bad science and methodology in relation to their record keeping.
These are serious and unfounded accusations directed towards one of the most eminent solar observers in the world. Shame on you.

No shame, the L&P research is flawed and should not have passed the peer review process. I challenge Anthony to review the results in a separate story on WUWT where it can be debated.

jan,
So the fact that significant warming occurred long before there were significant increases in CO2 doesn’t bother you in the slightests.

If those extremely tiny increases in CO2 from 1890 to 1950 was capable of increasing temperatures that much, then the CO2 increases since 1950 should have been enough to warm the earth by 4 or 5 degrees, at least, not the trivial 0.3 or so that has been measured (and poorly measured at that).

If you can’t explain the fact that more than half of the warming you claim CO2 causes occurs prior to 90% of the CO2 entering the atmosphere, then you don’t have a theory.

Leif Svalgaard says: June 15, 2011 at 8:33 am
……..
It would have been helpful if there were individual years marked on your original distribution graph
so we could observe distribution transition from one year to the next.

It shouldn’t be necessary to add that temperatures have been increasing, more or less steadily, since the end of the LIA. Are we to believe that whatever caused this warming petered out conveniently at 1950 and CO2 took over?

vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 9:39 amIt would have been helpful if there were individual years marked on your original distribution graph
so we could observe distribution transition from one year to the next.
Yes and No. People who attach meaning to noise would make too much out of it. This is somewhat noise data [as you can see]. It would have been better to show the average distribution in each group. But as a compromise, there is a little yellow symbol on the points for the first year in each group, to help bridge the transition from one group to the next.

So the fact that significant warming occurred long before there were significant increases in CO2 doesn’t bother you in the slightests.

Please be specific with respect to numbers and time period. What warming over what time period?

If those extremely tiny increases in CO2 from 1890 to 1950 was capable of increasing temperatures that much, then the CO2 increases since 1950 should have been enough to warm the earth by 4 or 5 degrees, at least, not the trivial 0.3 or so that has been measured (and poorly measured at that).

What are you talking about? And where do you get your numbers from? Pre-industrial CO2 was about 280 ppm. 1950 it was about 310 ppm. Now about 390 ppm. So about 25% of the increase happened before 1950. The temperature anomaly 1880 relative to 1950-1980 average is about -0.3 K, where the warming mostly happened between 1920 and 1950. The temperature anomaly today is about 0.6 K, with the increase starting around 1980.

If you can’t explain the fact that more than half of the warming you claim CO2 causes occurs prior to 90% of the CO2 entering the atmosphere, then you don’t have a theory.

What do I claim how much warming CO2 has caused in what time periods, and where do you get the 90% from? The larger fraction of the warming due to greenhouse gases happened after 1980.

vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:22 amI have reproduced Dr. Svalgaard’s distribution diagram
Normally ‘reproduced’ in science means that you have done an independent analysis and come to the same result. What you have done is ‘copied’ my diagram, and in the process mislabeled it. The curve your 2011 with arrow points to is the 2009 data. If you look really carefully, you can see a little purple cross in some of the red symbols. That is for 2011.

“No shame, the L&P research is flawed and should not have passed the peer review process. I challenge Anthony to review the results in a separate story on WUWT where it can be debated.”

You are invited to state your criticisms, all or some, of the paper right here on this very forum. Why don’t you? Do you suffer from shyness? What do you want Anthony to do, interview you and state them for you? Get serious or get the label Troll.

Dr. S.
OK. Copied not reproduced. Lapsus linguae. You often butcher my graphs, so I will take a ‘leif’ from your book too.
I’ve just relabelled the graphhttp://www.vukcevic.talktalk.net/L&Pd.htm
the retreat of magnetic field intensity towards higher value looks ‘good’.‘a bit of a ‘make hay while the sun shines’ since effect may diminish considerably in the intensity, as solar activity picks up during next year or two.’ mv@JCblog

I think it will be important to look at things on a decadal timeframe when making such a broad sweeping statement, and also consider all factors that are included in any global climate model. Suppose the sun goes to Maunder level of activity and we get a few Pinatubo type eruptions within the space of a few years. We could certainly see global temps decline during that period. But looking at a decadal time scale, you’d expect to see those shorter term effects average out. This is the same reasoning that goes to why looking at comparing temps between an El Nino year and La Nina year is not a reasonable or accurate thing to do. Over a decade though, you should see a stronger signal from the longer term forcings, such as is stated to be happening from CO2. Also, Global climate models currently are probably in error by not fully accounting for the solar/GCR/cloud activity, but since no one has yet quantified this, it would be hard to do. If we go into a Maunder Minimum and GCR’s do fall greatly, we’ll have the best lab experiment possible to see how that effects climate, and can compare direclty the power lower GCR’s to the 40% greater amount of CO2 in the atmosphere now versus the last Maunder minimum.

Jimbo says:
June 14, 2011 at 5:03 pm
R. Gates says:
June 14, 2011 at 4:15 pm
“………….the highest level of CO2 in the atmosphere could also play a role in altering the climate. …..”

Was that a typo or have I taken it COMPLETELY out of context???

“Parks Canada had been plotting the discovery of the three ships for more than a year, trying to figure out how to get the crews so far north. Once they arrived and got their bearings, the task seemed easier than originally thought. It took little more than 15 minutes to uncover the Investigator, officials told The Globe and Mail last week. “For a long time the area wasn’t open, but now it is because of climate change,” said Marc-André Bernier, chief of the Underwater Archaeology Service at Parks Canada.”http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/150-year-old-naval-vessel-found-underwater-in-arctic/article1661210/

Localized warming in the Arctic? Certainly!

_______
More to the point, how will AGW skeptics react if the arctic warming continues even during a Maunder Minimum type event? To what will they asrcribe the warming to then?

“. If it makes no difference (i.e. Europe get’s just as cold now as it did then) then we can pretty much throw away any caring about CO2 levels. If however, it doesn’t get as cold, or temps just sort of flat-line for 20 or 30 years, that also will tell us a great deal about the effects of CO2…meaning of course, that CO2 will have turned out to be a blessing in disguise…at least for the next 20 or 30 years.”

What are you on about? Are you putting on your parachute?

The warmanistas insist that there is only 0.1c difference between solar max and solar min. Therefore by the AGW theory, that you adhere to, then instead of increasing temps by 0.1c on top of the CO2 warming as we hit a solar max we will just experience a longstanding reduction of 0.1c which of course is insignificant as against a CO2 driven warming of 0.3c per decade.
So have you stopped believing in the AGW theory and have now moved to a solar driven position?

____
I don’t happen to see things in such black and white terms. The climate is certainly a combination of forcings, from Milankovitch at the extreme long-term end to ENSO and Volcanic activity on the shorter end of the time scale. By “solar driven” I take it you mean a combination of both changing solar output as well as the modulation of GCR’s and cloud relationships. This can’t be discounted and of course, recent research seems to indicate some plausible mechanisms here that will need to be quanitifed before they can be put into any global climate model. But certainly, the state of our climate is driven by many factors or forcings, of which the levels of GHG’s, Milankovitch cycles, volacnic activity, the position of the continents, and solar influences all play a part. It is a matter of quantification of each of these and the the climate’s sensitivity to rapid changes in each that need to be included in any accurate climate model. We’re not there yet, but get closer with each new discovery.

vukcevic says:
June 14, 2011 at 3:46 pm
I just plotted L&P data available from start of 2009 to the latest data in 2011.
I see no change! I see no L&P effect.!
I would not attach any meaning to two years of spotty data. BTW, the ‘latest’ data goes through May, 2011. A fit to magnetic field 2009 Jan. – 2011 May shows a decrease of 57 uT and an increase of intensity of 0.036. But both are too uncertain to be meaningful on their own. Only taken over a decade do the changes become interesting. One way to see this is to draw up the distribution of field strengths as a function of time: http://www.leif.org/research/Livingston-Penn-Distribution.png

Hi Leif, your graph would be a lot more informative if the curves were marked with the year they belong to. Please could you clarify?

R. Gates says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:26 am
More to the point, how will AGW skeptics react if the arctic warming continues even during a Maunder Minimum type event? To what will they asrcribe the warming to then?

You are assuming only one cause to Arctic warming!. . . . There are geothermals (volcano’s and the like) because the core of the earth is hot . . or so they say . . . even if the sun “was shut off” today . . . how long do you suppose it would take the earth to cool . . . or the volcano in Hawaii to cease? (for example) and would tectonic plates stop moving or would you postulate that the earth would cease spinning??

vukcevic says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:16 amthe retreat of magnetic field intensity towards higher value looks ‘good’.
The sentence does not make sense as stated. The differences between individual years may not be significant, only the longer term trend [blue to green to red].

A proper analysis would compare years with same sunspot numbers, like in this table:
SSN Median Average Year
_2.9 2217 2191 2008
_3.1 2046 2040 2009

tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:48 amHi Leif, your graph would be a lot more informative if the curves were marked with the year they belong to. Please could you clarify?
Yes and No. People who attach meaning to noise would make too much out of it. This is somewhat noise data [as you can see]. It would have been better to show the average distribution in each group. But as a compromise, there is a little yellow symbol on the points for the first year in each group, to help bridge the transition from one group to the next. [2011 is marked with tiny purple crosses].

Leif has been arguing previously that the differences in energy towards the earth from cycle to cycle are too small to make a difference in watts/m^**2. The data from the medieval warm period are proxy data, and it might just be a coincidence that the Maunder minimum coincided with the little ice age. Time will show., [emphasis mine]

= = =

anna v,

Intereseting point you made. My research shows the MM and LIA do not correlate well regarding MM causing LIA.

Back in March this year I made a comment here at WUWT which I reproduce below.

John Whitman says;

The Maunder Minimum (MM) is taken as occurring between ~1645 AD to ~1715 AD. We designate it as a solar grand minimum as compared to the Wolf, Sporer and Dalton minima which were not big enough to classify as grand minima. Rather they were moderate negative fluctuations.

The Little Ice Age (LIA) is taken as occurring between ~1550 AD to ~1850 AD.

If the MM is argued as the cause of the LIA, then there is a problem due to the observation that the LIA was already into its 100th year and near its minimum temperature period before the MM was starting. It is fatal for a causation argument. Any correlation that may exist is rendered meaningless.

Now I need to look at the Dalton Minimum versus earth cooling periods to see if it has the same problem as the MM versus the LIA. I also need to look at the Wolf and Sporer Minimums versus earth cooling periods. Has anybody already done that?

To John S. and others who see no apparent pattern in solar ativity and who doubt the ability to predict what the Sun will do – heed this. The Sun is controlled by the planets, the Jovian planets, especially.

Ask any astrophyscist, not feeding out of the public trough, and you will discover how simple it is to predict what the Sun will do. It’s all celestial mechanics, not agw, not CO2, not man; just the planets and Sun interacting to the “music of the spheres”; a dance of predictable patterns and influences.

tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 11:48 am
Hi Leif, your graph would be a lot more informative if the curves were marked with the year they belong to. Please could you clarify?
Yes and No. People who attach meaning to noise would make too much out of it. This is somewhat noise data [as you can see].

You’ve presented it in the way which is the most convincing in support of the hypothesis but won’t supply the information which would enable us to get a more accurate view of the L&P effects consistency or otherwise.

tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:49 pmYou’ve presented it in the way which is the most convincing in support of the hypothesis but won’t supply the information which would enable us to get a more accurate view of the L&P effects consistency or otherwise.
If it is convincing it is because the data is convincing. Every single year is plotted. The first year in each group is marked. The spread within each group is either real or noise [I can’t tell which and I don’t think you or anybody else can either – and some people here are addicted to make something out of noise]. The proper thing would have been to show the average curve for each group [with an error bar]. I went a bit further than that and showed every year so you can judge the error yourself. Please note that. In any event, I have posted the raw data somewhere so everybody can do their own analysis.

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:58 pm
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 1:49 pm
You’ve presented it in the way which is the most convincing in support of the hypothesis but won’t supply the information which would enable us to get a more accurate view of the L&P effects consistency or otherwise.
If it is convincing it is because the data is convincing. Every single year is plotted. The first year in each group is marked.

I’m going to get a wider variety of colours for your christmas crayon box.

tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:29 pmI’m going to get a wider variety of colours for your christmas crayon box.
You are missing the point. I was dead serious and have given this a great deal of thought.

You are invited to state your criticisms, all or some, of the paper right here on this very forum. Why don’t you? Do you suffer from shyness? What do you want Anthony to do, interview you and state them for you? Get serious or get the label Troll.

I have stated my views many times on here Theo re the L&P effect and have written an article on my blog debunking the process and results. If you think questioning a piece of research in a science blog is trolling I would think you are out of line. This issue should be dealt with properly instead of having meaningless discussions with one person who is baised and involved with the research at the end of a dying thread.

Being cold is a relative thing. A somewhat continuous downslope of temperatures takes it’s toll over time
Settled populations tended to adapt much more back then, and generation after generation would do it’s best to cope with progressively colder condition. To the point of no return, where weakened populations succumbed.
The more adventurous or enterprising migrated.
I would hope the next time around mankind would do a better job of things.

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:33 pm
tallbloke says:
June 15, 2011 at 2:29 pm
I’m going to get a wider variety of colours for your christmas crayon box.
You are missing the point. I was dead serious and have given this a great deal of thought.

I want to know how much the data jumps around. If your graph told me which year was which, I would be able to tell. It doesn’t so I can’t. End of story.

tallbloke says:
June 16, 2011 at 5:49 amThe reviewers who rejected the paper first time round might be worth talking to as well.
They rejected the paper because of the short interval of time with data. Now that we have twice as much that objection falls away.

tallbloke says:
June 16, 2011 at 5:52 amI want to know how much the data jumps around. If your graph told me which year was which, I would be able to tell. It doesn’t so I can’t.
I show every year; that tells you how much the data is jumping around. The jumping from year to year is mostly noise and has no further significance. In fact, the spread within each group shows you what the noise is [trying to draw conclusions from the noise is not productive]. For the crucial most recent interval [red curve] each year is marked differently anyway.

John Whitman said (@June 15, 2011 at 12:48 pm), “The Maunder Minimum (MM) is taken as occurring between ~1645 AD to ~1715 AD”

Only if one ignores the downslope from the peak of the MWP 500 years before. Thus by 1550 (the LIA) we were in the final 100 years of a 500 year downslope so no surprise that it started to bite then.
= = = = =

Stephen Wilde,

Thanks for your observation. It seems to support the idea I had that the MM was way too late to be the prime cause of the LIA. Thanks.

“Thanks for your observation. It seems to support the idea I had that the MM was way too late to be the prime cause of the LIA. Thanks.
John.”

I don’t think so. My observation points out that the LIA commencing in 1550 could well have been a result of declining solar activity on the downswing even though the maximum reduction in solar activity was not until 1645 or so.

“We are NOT predicting a mini-ice age. We are predicting the behavior of the solar cycle. In my opinion, it is a huge leap from that to an abrupt global cooling, since the connections between solar activity and climate are still very poorly understood. My understanding is that current calculations suggest only a 0.3 degree C decrease from a Maunder-like minimum, too small for an ice age. It is unfortunate that the global warming/cooling studies have become so politically polarizing.”

“We are NOT predicting a mini-ice age. We are predicting the behavior of the solar cycle. In my opinion, it is a huge leap from that to an abrupt global cooling, since the connections between solar activity and climate are still very poorly understood.

I can live with that. My calcs project a moderate cooling at about the same rate as the moderate warming when the sun was more active than usual.

tallbloke says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:13 amMy calcs project a moderate cooling at about the same rate as the moderate warming when the sun was more active than usual.
Except that the Sun in the 20th century was likely not significantly more active than in the two preceding centuries.

Shall we say ‘a moderate cooling without sunspots at about the same rate as the moderate warming with sunspots’? Still no mechanism here, alas, but I’m assured top drawer people are ransacking the socks looking for it.
==============

Leif Svalgaard says:
June 17, 2011 at 5:47 am
tallbloke says:
June 17, 2011 at 1:13 am
My calcs project a moderate cooling at about the same rate as the moderate warming when the sun was more active than usual.
Except that the Sun in the 20th century was likely not significantly more active than in the two preceding centuries.

Doesn’t need to be for my calcs to work, The second half of the C20th was more active in solar terms than the first half. And your back proection beyond 1840 isn’t on firm ground yet. What counts is the amount of time the solar activity is above the ocean equilibrium level. That level will need to be adjusted if your reconstruction pans out, but it won’t make the correlation go away unless you flatten the Sun’s variability completely.

P16.10
Large-scale Zonal Flows During the Solar Minimum — Where Is Cycle 25?13
Frank Hill, R. Howe, R. Komm, J. Christensen-Dalsgaard, T. P. Larson, J. Schou, M. J. Thompson
..The prolonged solar minimum following Cycle 23 was accompanied by a delay of 1.5 to 2 years in the migration of bands of faster rotation towards the equator. During the rising phase of Cycle 24, while the lower-level bands match those seen in the rising phase of Cycle 23, the rotation rate at middle and higher latitudes remains slower than it was at the corresponding phase in earlier cycles, perhaps reflecting the weakness of the polar fields..
P17.21
A Decade of Diminishing Sunspot Vigor
W. C. Livingston, M. Penn, L. Svalgaard
..From 2001 to 2011 we have measured field strength and brightness at the darkest position in umbrae of 1750 spots..
..Over this interval the temporal mean magnetic field has declined about 500 Gauss and mean spot intensity has risen about 20%..
P18.04
Whither goes Cycle 24? A View from the Fe XIV Corona
Richard C. Altrock
Solar Cycle 24 had a historically prolonged and weak start. Observations of the Fe XIV corona from the Sacramento Peak site of the National Solar Observatory showed an abnormal pattern of emission compared to observations of Cycles 21, 22, and 23 from the same instrument. The previous three cycles had a strong, rapid “Rush to the Poles” in Fe XIV. Cycle 24 displays a delayed, weak, intermittent, and slow “Rush” that is mainly apparent in the northern hemisphere..

New Insights on How Solar Minimums Affect Earth
..Observations have shown, however, that magnetic effects on Earth due to the sun, effects that cause the aurora to appear, did not go down in synch with the cycle of low magnetism on the sun. Now, a paper in Annales Geophysicae that appeared on May 16, 2011 reports that these effects on Earth did in fact reach a minimum — indeed they attained their lowest levels of the century — but some eight months later..
..First, the researchers noted that in 2008 and 2009, the interplanetary magnetic field was the lowest it had been in the history of the space age. This was an obvious contribution to the geomagnetic minimum. But since the geomagnetic effects didn’t drop in 2008, it could not be the only factor.
..
The team found a culprit in something called coronal holes. Coronal holes are darker, colder areas within the sun’s outer atmosphere. Fast solar wind shoots out the center of coronal holes at speeds up to 500 miles per second, but wind flowing out of the sides slows down as it expands into space.

“Usually, at solar minimum, the coronal holes are at the sun’s poles,” says Giuliana de Toma, a solar scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research whose research on this topic helped provide insight for this paper. “Therefore, Earth receives wind from only the edges of these holes, and it’s not very fast. But in 2007 and 2008, the coronal holes were not confined to the poles as normal.”

Those coronal holes lingered at low latitudes to the end of 2008. Consequently, the center of the holes stayed firmly pointed towards Earth, sending fast solar wind in Earth’s direction. Only as they finally appeared closer to the poles in 2009 did the speed of the solar wind at Earth begin to slow down. And, of course, the geomagnetic effects and sightings of the aurora along with it.http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.cfm?release=2011-181&cid=release_2011-181&msource=11181&tr=y&auid=8505861″
Thanks Dr S. and others for their commens. I don’t like reading about rotation rate changes on the sun because sooner or later..eeeek..

tallbloke says:
June 17, 2011 at 11:25 amDoesn’t need to be for my calcs to work, The second half of the C20th was more active in solar terms than the first half.
The increase of temps during the first half was a big as during the last half.

Kim: astute comment. TSI is not the whole story.
As far as we know TSI is a proxy for all other activity, so as TSI goes, so does the rest.

“Earth-dwellers can expect more of these coronal mass ejections, with the number peaking in 2013. Over a course of 11 years, the sun’s magnetic poles shift, with the north pole eventually becoming the south and vice versa.”

Lief S: This is not an exact accurate statment, correct? As I am reading this, it implies the poles shift every 11 years . . . I have never heard this . . . I am of the understanding it takes longer than that!